We were lucky to catch up with Mio Ishikawa recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Mio thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

The biggest life changing moment is when I decided to audition for The Juilliard School and come to the US to study dance. I was 20 years old in my second year of college for economics in Japan. I hadn’t been dancing for years. In my first year of college, I started to question if I crave creativity in my life. The answer was yes. I was craving the creativity that I experienced through dance. The freedom of expression and play. So, I started to dance again and sought for the right place to pursue this practice and craving. My dance teacher at that time recommended The Juilliard school of dance. I knew this is somewhere I wanted to transition into, where I can spend four years deeply diving into the exploration of expression, story telling, performance, composition and many more through movements. Also in such an environment, I got to meet and study with a wide range of artists in music, opera, and theater. I prepared myself as much as I could. All of a sudden, I was in NYC for the first time auditioning for The Juilliard School. Then I got in. It was the moment when the choice of moving to the US and starting the journey is entirely up to me, I decided to take the risk. This was not only the beginning of another college life but also of entirely new life in the entirely new environment where you are not familiar with people, language, food, city and anything else. It felt like I had to leave everything I built in Japan over the last 21 years behind in order to find myself again.

I took this risk because of my experience of the Great East Japan earthquake in 2011. This earthquake showed me how what we think as normal is taken away by second. Seeing so many lives taken and also so many of our living conditions are threatened by secondary disaster due to the nuclear power plant disorder. As a high schooler at that time, it was a memorable moment. I made a promise to myself that I will live up to my full potential because nothing is guaranteed. So when this opportunity came, I took all the risk with it.

It turned out to be a much tougher transition and more beautiful expansion of my life. My time at Juilliard was supported by a scholarship by TOMODACHI initiative, which is a partnership between the US-Japan Council born out of support for Japan’s recovery from the Great East Japan earthquake. Grieving all the loss from the disaster, this uncoincidental connection allowed me to think about my new journey in the US aligned with the recovery process in Japan. 4 years at the Juilliard had me reestablish the foundation to be an artist with curiosity, patience, sustainability and resiliency. And throughout the journey, my heart has always been with the most impactful event that I will never forget. Moreover, the risk I took led my path in New York City living as an artist and to bring in so many people I call as chosen family into my life. Additionally, the journey led me to what I get to do everyday which is performing live and sharing the vulnerable and thrilling storytelling experiences with people through dance. And this is such a beautiful gift I get to have on the other side of the risk I took.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

After I graduated from Juilliard, I started freelancing in New York. I auditioned for many projects and company jobs and kept showing up to the classes, workshops to be seen and connected with people in the industry. Eventually, I started getting small gigs through people I made connections with. I started to feel more grounded in when I started dancing with Sidra Bell Dance New York in 2021, which gave me more consistent engagements as a professional dancer. When I think of the opportunities I have had, it is through the people I have worked with on various scales. This taught me that industry is a community that artists build together.

Currently, I am a fulltime performer at Sleep No More NYC since 2023 and freelancer since 2019. At Sleep No More, I perform 6 times a week, sharing immersive experiences with the audience that are intimate and vulnerable. As a freelancer, I have been dancing with Sidra Bell Dance New York since 2021 and Company Stefanie Batten Bland since 2020. Additionally, I have worked on collaboration with various artists across mediums such as fashion designers, photographers, filmmakers, musicians and such. Since 2019, I have also been serving as an associate director of bicoastal dance collective BODYSONNET. We have created site specific works, evenings of performances and dance films and led residencies in US and Germany that are inspired by and connected with the local community through dance.

I think the diversity and range that lives inside my body and creative interests sets me apart from others. To be working as an immersive performer, a dancer on proscenium stage, directing a dance collective, being on print, and collaborating through multiple mediums provides my work with different colors and textures.

I don’t know if I am ever proud of myself but I do enjoy it if my performances or works reach people by bringing joy, excitement, sparkles, compassion, curiosity and many more different sensations. I believe that movement has the power to connect with people in ways that language does not. And if I can create connectedness between people through my work, that is my aim.

I want my audience to know that my work exists in between various mediums. I believe dance is design and groove. Movement is designed by the negative space, in other words, it is a response to the context and shaped by the environment. And it is a groove I find between multiple artistic mediums that abstracts space, time and texture to create magic. I would like to continue to work across multiple mediums to find different designs and grooves.Through collaboration, I believe that we can keep expanding our web to build sustainable communities.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

For me it is the endless imagination that we can put into our work freely. I believe one of the great skills we have as humans is the ability to abstract things.
I remember as a kid, there was an infinite number of imaginations. To be an artist is to tap into that state through practice and movement. It is to acknowledge that there’s no fixed form in the first place in this world. Using abstraction, we are able to transform our emotions and experiences into something more than what the words can explain. And this provides me with more resilience and sustainability because we are not living in a fixed position or mindset. We are able to flow with the time, in other words we’re able to find the most of the present moment. And I think this is the very best way to live with the gift life offers us. I find this to be the most rewarding aspect of being an artist.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I think it is a transitional journey of moving from Japan to US that illustrates my resilience the most. I was not able to talk to people to communicate due to language difficulty, I had to practice until my body and brain learned English. And most of the time I was quietly listening and observing a lot of things. This time taught me the importance of patience and listening. Patience is to allow things to grow themselves as you put consistent work into it. Listening is to observe the flow and essence in things. Those lessons and skills are not only reflected in my work but also allow me to stay resilient with new challenges.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.mioishikawa.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_mioishikawa/

Image Credits
Featured photo by Amy J Gardner Photo in the black dress Image credits to Mob Journal, Photo by Moon Chang Photo in green dress Photo by Olga Rabetskaya Photo in black and white Photo by Olga Rabetskaya Photo in white costumes Image credits to Madison Hicks Photo by Andrea Guermani Photo in the green silver background with face mask Image credit to Mob Journal Photo by En Lin